Captain JoJin Carter -vs. The Province of Massachusetts Buy. 333 the spread of the plague. This law was not a success, and it soon became a grievous ex pense. Returned paupers filled the carrier's wagons; and after they had got their papers from the magistrates, they would produce a lot of luggage, good clothes, bonnet boxes, etc., and insist on these being carried. The Dutch had their own peculiar way of dealing with the pest of vagabonds. They put the loafer in a water-tight 'compartment with a pump in it and a tap high out of reach. The water was set running and the fellow was obliged to pump in order to save himself from being drowned. Washington Irving in his history of New York describes the strange gibbet by which Governor William, the testy, suspended tramps by the waist. Says he : " It'is incredi ble how the little governor chuckled at behold ing caitiff vagrants and sturdy beggars thus swinging by the crupper, and cutting antic gambols in the air. He had a thousand pleasantries and mirthful conceits to utter upon those occasions. He called them his dandelions, his wild-fowl, his high flyers, his
spread eagles, his goshawks, his scarecrows, and finally his gallons-birds. . . . Such was the punishment of all petty delinquents, va grants and beggars, and others detected in being guilty of poverty in a small way." A good deal might be added on the more recent vagrancy laws of our own county. A few items, however, must conclude my arti cle. The tramp law of Ohio once imposed a penalty of three years' imprisonment for kindling a fire on the public highway, or en tering a yard uninvited. Besides the state law, some of the towns of Ohio issued edicts of their own on the mat ter, as for example : " Tramps, Attention! All tramps will take notice that . the}' are hereby notified not to come inside the limits of the city of Springfield. And all tramps being found inside the corporate limits of said city after this date, will be arrested and placed on the chain-gang, and be compelled to break stone for the terni of five days." But in spite of centuries of legislation against him, the vagabond is still with us. What shall we do with him?
CAPT. JOHN CARTER vs. THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.1 BY Louis CRAIG CORNISH. WHEN Captain John Carter, H. R. N., Commander of the Royal Frigate Eagle, married Miss Mollie Stuart of Rich mond, Virginia, in the year 1699, it did not appear that within three months he would be whipped on Boston Common because of his love for her, that a worthy magistrate of Massachusetts Bay would be involved in a 1 For early reference to t his case, see p. 72 of John Dunton's " Letters from Kew England, A. L). i6S6," (Prince Society Publications, 1867); also, p. 149 of "Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America. In the years 1759 and 1760, with Observations upon the State of the Colonies, by the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, A. M., Vicar of Greenwich. Second edition. London. Printed forT. Payne, at the Mews-Gate, MDCCLXXV."
trying interpretation of colonial law, and that the question of where justice really lay in the affair would be left still unanswered two hun dred years after the event : yet such was the case. Captain and Mrs. Carter, however, were quite unconscious that any peculiar signifi cance was attached to their movements when, shortly after their marriage, they sailed away in the Eagle toward the north, where the frigate was ordered to join the squadron then at Newport. Immediately on her ar rival, she was ordered to proceed to Portland, and returning, to cruise along the coast stop ping at all the settlements. The honeymoon
